Who’s No. 1 in SoCon football?

Here’s the dilemma for Southern Conference voters and national voters in preseason football polls which aren’t very far away. Appalachian State won the league last season, but lost to Georgia Southern during the regular season and the Eagles went farther in the FCS playoffs.

The Mountaineers have stars coming back like quarterback DeAndre Presley, the league’s Offensive Player of the Year, and leading wide receiver Brian Quick, but must break in three new offensive linemen.

But App has a reputation of reloading and finished the regular season as the No. 1 seed in the playoffs – all this without a guy named Armanti at quarterback.

GSU, with nearly the entire team back including a healthy quarterback Jaybo Shaw, had a great late-season run, but a 4-4 start made the Eagles look very average. Of course, to that point, the Eagles were just learning Coach Jeff Monken’s triple option offense.

To complicate matters, the Wofford Terriers wouldn’t mind some consideration as the league’s top dog. Wofford split two games with GSU last season. The Terriers have Southern and Appalachian State at home this season.

In the final 2010 FCS Top 25 poll conducted by The Sports Network, with 122 voters, only 13 points separated No. 4 Appalachian State from No. 5 Georgia Southern – 2,453 to 2,440. Wofford was sixth.